


Questions

by botgal



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Pale Infidelity Concerns, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Quadrant Confusion, Sleepy Cuddles, Troll romance is weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 18:56:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12115083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/botgal/pseuds/botgal
Summary: In which Xefros Tritoh contemplates what his life has come to, and the alien he's met who has made him come to question many things.





	Questions

**Author's Note:**

> I will say that, despite the current climate around him atm, I did make a conscious effort to not demonize Dammek. So I hope it comes across as more 'Xefros is confused' rather than 'Xefros immediately thinks he's a bad friend'.

Did he know his life would lead him to this? Hidden in a cave miles away from his comfortable, familiar hive with an alien girl, the both of them curled up into the soft fur of his moirail's lusus as they tried to doze off to rest?

… Well no, that might not have necessarily been his first guess, per say. Though it wasn't necessarily his last. (Did it count if it simply wasn't _any_ of his guesses?)

Without any of that complicated contemplation, it was at least relatively peaceful in here. The sun had yet to rise, but to be honest, the both of them were dead tired. What with both of them having just barely escaped certain death on different occasions throughout the day and night in the span of 24 hours. Besides, it getting to the middling part of the sweep, it stayed dark for longer. And it had been close to coontime when Joey had been laser shot into his life regardless. So he was about as dead tired as she was. He was even willing to fall asleep against this lusus (he may have gotten used to the practice of sleeping outside the coon thanks to Dammek's training him, but he still vastly preferred the comfort of sopor slime to drift off in).

Joey, in fact, was already flat unconscious. Curled up near Dammek's lusus's flank with its tail draped over her, while he was closer to the front. What was the name she'd given the white creature? 'Mononoke'? Sounded like a fancy title for a Troll instead of a name for a well meaning lusus. But it had been her decision based on their new 'bond', or so she said. And he wasn't one to question the decisions of the alien who'd saved his worthless gutterblood life.

Or, no, not worthless. She'd gotten really upset when he'd called himself that, last. So maybe he should stop thinking of himself like that? Did that mean no more calling himself a 'gutterblood', too? It was hard not to, after all of his time with it in his head.

Honestly, he didn't know what to think of her, really. In just a few short hours she'd already knocked a lot of what he knew on its head. Chiding him for his self depreciation. Expressing such blatant and dangerous anger at the system whose social order instilled these feelings into them. Making claims that his _moirail_ of so many sweeps was mistreating him and being even a bad friend (which he knew wasn't entirely true, Dammek had so many good qualities to him, more than what she knew and had been told probably and he did wish she wouldn't say some of the things she was saying about him).

It was... dizzying, to be honest.

But, not entirely in a bad way?

So much of what she said, somehow it just made sense. In a way he'd never really considered before. Her bold claims of what sort of friends they would be and how he deserved to be treated... God if that wasn't one of the most blatant displays of pale declaration he'd ever been witness to.

But how did he even feel about this? Just a few hours previous they met, and now he was so conflicted. Was this some sort of pale feeling? Was it something more reddish? Could he feel that way for an alien? Could an alien feel that way for _him_ ? She didn't even know what a _lusus_ was when he'd brought it up, how did he know if an alien operated on the same concepts of romance that Trolls did? And what about Dammek? Was he being unfaithful to him as a moirail with all of this? Even with how Joey claimed he'd been treating him?

Everything was just so darn complicated and so confusing.

And here he lay, contemplating it in a cave, using a lusus as a comfort pad with an alien girl who was making him feel weird feelings he didn't quite understand.

He closed his eyes and let out a soft sound. Why him? Was all of this because he was a rustblood, and he eternally deserved his suffering?

There was the sound of shifting beside him, and he suddenly felt a pressure curled around his arm. His eyes shot open and he looked to where he felt it.

There was Joey, still sound asleep. But she'd rolled over and was now curled up against him. Clinging to his arm and shivering. It was still a bit nippy while it was still dark, even if the sun that would rise would certainly warm things up. For now, though, she clung on to him, and her trembling slowly faded while his body heat helped to warm her again. Until she was back to her previously deeply sleeping self.

He looked at her uncertainly, brow furrowed slightly. But, at last, he let out a sigh, and rolled onto his side. There was a moment of shifting until things were comfortably situated again, but finally they were both curled up against each other. Comfortable and warm until the next nightfall at least.

This whole thing... whatever it was, it could at least wait until then.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I know Princess Mononoke didn't come out until a few years after 1994. Worse liberties have been taken.


End file.
